DMA FAQ Core platform services

Article 2 of the DMA lists the core platform service categories: online intermediation services, online search engines, online social networking services, video-sharing platform services, number-independent interpersonal communications services, operating systems, web browsers, virtual assistants, cloud computing services, and online advertising services provided by an undertaking that also provides one of the other listed categories.

A service-scope answer should name the category, explain the product boundary, and identify whether the Commission has listed that service in a gatekeeper designation decision. The label used in a product roadmap is not enough; the DMA analysis turns on the Article 2 category and the service that is an important gateway for business users to reach end users.

Article 3 designates an undertaking as a gatekeeper when it has significant impact on the internal market, provides a core platform service that is an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and has an entrenched and durable position or is expected to have one soon. The quantitative presumption uses business-size evidence plus service-level user evidence.

For the user-gateway presumption, the DMA threshold is at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and at least 10,000 yearly active business users established in the Union for the core platform service in the last financial year. The Annex requires unique users to be counted once for the relevant service and period: monthly for active end users and yearly for active business users.

The DMA Annex is the most useful scoping control because it explains how active end users and active business users are identified for each category. It also gives boundary rules: services in the same category should not be split mainly by domain name or geography, while services used for different purposes can be treated as distinct even when users overlap.

A good scoping file therefore separates category, user purpose, business-user route to end users, metrics, and designation status. It should also name category-specific counting logic: for example, search uses queries and indexed business websites, operating systems use activated or used devices and developers, and online advertising uses advertisement-impression and advertiser or intermediary interactions.

Article 11 reporting is organised by designated core platform service and applicable obligation. The Commission template says each designated gatekeeper must provide a compliance report within 6 months after designation, update it at least annually, and provide separate standalone annexes for each core platform service for which it has been designated.

For each core platform service and each applicable Articles 5 to 7 obligation, the template asks for a compliance statement, an exhaustive explanation of measures, supporting data and internal documents, implementation timing, product and geographic scope, technical and engineering changes, customer-experience changes, remuneration and terms changes, consultation with users or interested parties, testing and indicators, monitoring systems, and feedback from business users or end users.